Just a note since I’ve been struggling. My job went away again, and I had to find something else internally. I finally did, but it was a stressful 2 months.

Later this week I’ll post a video of the Rube Goldberg machine my youngest made for school. I kept putting it off because the setup was slightly off for the video I took, but we have used some of the parts for something else.

So, I had been doing well at making sure that I wrote at least once a week here. Then life happened. I started focusing too much on writing on 750words.com instead of actually doing any productive writing – as if writing here is very productive. All it does is get out the thoughts that are in my head.

In the last couple of weeks: We’ve taken in my niece’s dog. My husband’s grandparents have moved to 2 hours away. My 13 year old has had a few band trips. I’ve gotten overwhelmed at work and just couldn’t focus on anything. We’ve started Christmas play practice at church with my youngest child as one of the lead roles.

The dog situation is fun. My youngest two aren’t very happy with having the dog at our house. Our dog is somewhere around 4 and is a big dog. She’s fairly calm. This dog is about a year old and is very hyper. Our dog isn’t much of a cuddler except when she is scared – then she wants me. This dog will lay on whoever is nearby. Our dog only sleeps on our bed. The other dog will sleep on whatever bed she finds. My kids don’t like having a dog sleep with them. Our dog sleeps with me when I go to bed while my husband is at work, since he works second shift. My husband has her sleep with him after I leave for work. She prefers to sleep on my pillow.

The rest of it isn’t bad, it just makes for a busy time, especially with taekwondo on Mondays, church on Wednesdays and Blue Star Mothers every other Thursday. Sometimes I forget that I need a breather. Now that the temperature is getting cooler, maybe it’ll get better.

I’ve had to stay off Facebook the last couple of weeks. It brings up too many memories. There are reasons I don’t see the point in drinking, and parties like the ones recently described are part of it. Just because I didn’t drink in high school doesn’t mean I didn’t go through that phase like others.

I’ve got a bunch of crocheting to do. I have a lot of extra yarn that I’ve bought on clearance over the years, and I want to make hats to give to the homeless shelter in town. I’d like them to give them away to the people who need it. Just because I live in a relatively small city, the shelter frequently has around 60 people a night, depending on how cold it gets.

The group that runs the shelter also does a meal on Tuesday nights, and a clothes closet after the meal. Once the shelter is open (it only opens for a couple of months in the summer and another couple of months in the winter), they also feed more than those 60 people. Anyone who is not sure where their next meal is coming from can eat there. My husband and I will volunteer when they reopen in December. He likes to cook, and it reminds me that I have plenty of reasons to be grateful.

I need to get some sleep. I haven’t been sleeping well, and I’m noticing it. I have been cranky at work the last few weeks. Then I have to put in headphones. Of course, that means listening to either Nerdificent or Stuff You Missed in History Class. Not sure what I’m going to do when I catch up on the History podcast, maybe I’ll listen to TechStuff or Stuff You Should Know. They have plenty of other podcasts.

So, I’ve been spending a lot of time working on my crochet projects lately. I’ve actually had to repeat the same projects over and over, since I have a bunch of people I want to make them for lol. I’ve got dishcloths going, and towels with crocheted toppers.

I’m actually focusing on being able to make more of an income with writing, which includes making myself write more often. I’m working on it, but it’s slow going sometimes.

Tomorrow, I have a so-called wellness appointment. or evaluation, or whatever. I have lost a bunch of weight that I gained when we were living at my husband’s grandmother’s house. I haven’t lost enough. Since I work in the office, in an administrative role, I needed to lose about twice what I’ve lost. That means that I made progress, but not enough. So, unless I can get some way to show them that I’m making progress, I’ll have to pay an extra $30 a month for my health insurance.

I’ve been involved in writing and crocheting, and haven’t had a chance to do much gaming lately. I miss it, and I miss the outlet. It’s just hard when I know that I have a limited amount of time to work on the projects I want to get done. I’ll get them done, and then I’ll have to find another game to play. That’s a good plan. In the meantime, with the storm that hit North Carolina, I’m pretty sure that Apoc is down because of power outages, though I haven’t had the time to check.

I worry about my mother for this year. It’s going to be her first year without my stepdad since they got remarried on September 10, 1985. It just occurred to me, yesterday was the anniversary of my first marriage as well. I haven’t thought about that lately.

They’ve already started working on the Christmas play at church, so I guess that means that I’ll be busier than ever in a few weeks.

To my friends and family in Virginia and North Carolina, please be safe. It looks like Florence is only heading to Virginia and North Carolina at the moment, and possibly to DC.

We’ve been inundated with rain from Hurricane Gordon over the last week. To the point where the county I live in is not under a drought conditions at all in September. I’ve seen a few warnings about flooding instead. It hasn’t been too bad where I am, but it’s been interesting.

Off topic, my dog saw a skunk in the yard last night, and thought it was a cat. She hates cats, so she attacked and got sprayed. My husband got sprayed as well. I don’t think the dog liked the taste, as she kept digging her muzzle in the dirt while we were trying to figure out the best way to deal with it. We did wash her up with peroxide, baking soda and dish detergent, which is supposed to be more effective than tomato juice. The smell is still there, but faintly. I really need to give her another bath, but it’s hard for just one adult.

So, like most big companies, we have a water cooler and big bottles of water delivered. Many of the others in the office will empty the bottle but leave it on the cooler. It’s annoying, but I can deal.

I actually get a giggle most of the time, because dealing with the water bottles makes me think of RK (Riverkid from Apoc). When I worked and lived in North Carolina, he is the one who delivered the water to where I worked. I know that he doesn’t do it any more, or he didn’t the last time I actually talked to him, but it’s still an interesting association. It’s only been in the last couple of months that he has really come to mind.

It’s possible that Asheville is on my mind because my sister lives in North Carolina and is wanting me to move near her. I know that I miss living in the mountains, whether it’s Vermont or the Smoky mountains in North Carolina. I miss being able to hike up the mountains and be out in nature. Here in OK, it’s too hot most of the time.

One of the things I like doing here in OK is digging crystals at the salt plains. The problem with that, is it’s a huge flat area and any heat outside is only magnified. https://www.fws.gov/refuge/salt_plains/visit/dig.html. I’m thinking I’ll suggest we go again closer to the end of September. It’s surprisingly relaxing to be digging in the mud, but we really need to be taking an extra set of clothes next time. I was crusted with selenite when I came home last time.

It might be time to start looking at geocaching or something like that to find more things to do. When the temperature is over 90F every day, it’s hard to want to be outside. I guess, since it’s getting ready to cool off, it may be time to look for other things to do.

So, after boasting about my middle child and only daughter programming a robot for her STEM class final, my youngest is applying to be in Robotics club.

Apparently, they only have 10 kids total who can do it, and only 2 out of the 4th grade – the remaining 8 will be out of the 5th grade. We haven’t heard yet if he made it into it, but I think it’s cool that he’s showing interest.

One of these days, I need to find the book that I bought myself years ago. I know it’s out of date some, but it was something about how to made my own robot. Most of it includes buying some of the stuff from places that I didn’t have access to at the time. That’s one of the downfalls of it being before the Internet, and I lived in Northeastern Vermont. There wasn’t much around back then. Now it’d be much easier for me to find the parts I need. I make no guarantees that I’ll do it, but I think it’d be good to work on it with both kids. They have the interest.

I also got some programming and logic games for the youngest for Christmas. If I can get the dog to leave us alone while sitting on the floor, then maybe we can start out with that. I want to encourage my kids to learn all of this, even though the girl wants to be a vet, or a chef. She hasn’t quite decided. At 13, she has time. The youngest wants to be an engineer. His older brother knew what he wanted at 9 as well. He wanted to be a computer programmer. He hasn’t been far off with that.

It is getting late, but I haven’t been updating as often as I originally planned. So, I’m taking it a bit at a time and going to do what I’m supposed to. That means that I’m going to write as often as I can, and I’m going to do what I need to. I also write on 750words.com, but I don’t think that my profile is public. Actually, since I write about what’s on my mind, I really hope it’s not LOL. There are things I say there, that I wouldn’t stay here.

Since it’s well after midnight. I’m going to say laterness and g’nite.

Someone told me the other day that I take too much on myself. I’ve been told the same before, and I know it’s right – I started to say suspect, but I have a dear friend I could see rolling their eyes at me saying that it might not be correct. That’s a good reason why I’m always stressed out. I guess I just like to borrow trouble. It’s not the first time I’ve been told that.

So my goal in the next few weeks is to find a way to let go of all of these things that I’m taking on. It’s not only my responsibility. It’s something other people can handle too. The constant worrying has made it hard for me to sleep well. I’m hoping that letting go of things means I can sleep better.

I had been adding exercise every day before the Comic Con at the beginning of the month. Then I was physically exhausted for several days. I’m starting back on the exercise train. The dog is happy with the walks. She tries to drag me down the street when the kids get on the bus in the mornings because she thinks it needs to be a daily occurrence. Poor baby, it’s been raining, so I haven’t wanted to walk.

LOL so I started this post a week ago, and had to stop. But, all I got done was the title. Now I get to figure out what I was going to talk about. I’m pretty sure that I know what I was going to say. There’s so much of my life that’s in limbo right now.

My job. So the company I was working for was bought out by another company a year ago. I was offered a job with this new company back in October, but so were other people. People who have since had their jobs downsized. We’re moving to the new company system sometime next year. No one is able to tell us how things will go once we move to the new system. Which means I don’t know if I will have a job after next September or not. I’ve been trying to focus on writing to see if I can pay down the new Jeep and try to reduce our bills to get by longer. Other than that, I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to do if my job is gone. If I do still have a job in a year, hey my bills will be lower than they are now.

Maybe that’s the only thing on my mind. I know that I’m having issues with stuff at work – more than typical, but it’s all under some of the changes that would be going on anyway. It’s growing pains from stuff the old company did before it was bought by the new one.

I’ve been feeling blah. I’m having issues making decisions. I know that there’s so much that I should be doing, but I also know that the stress is overloading my brain and making it hard to do anything. I think the stress overload from work related issues, plus the stress of not knowing if I’ll have a job next year has my brain paralyzed. No big deal, except for when I’m trying to apply for web writing jobs.

After serious thought today, I’m thinking that I should make an early night of it tonight. I’m going to finish the afghan I’m working on and go to bed by 9:30 (don’t laugh, I can do it). In the meantime, I’m going to do some relaxing and taking care of myself. All the fun stuff, crochet, write and watch Netflix.

I listened to the most recent podcast for Nerdificent this morning, and now I want to watch the Twilight Zone. I can remember watching these shows when I was younger, and I found some of them unsettling. Now, I suspect that I’d probably find them as unsettling, but not as creepy.

I have been trying to focus on writing at least weekly on here, but during the summer, there’s not much to update. I mean I go to work, the kids go to a day camp, I go home and try to stay cool. The staying cool is sometimes difficult here in Oklahoma. Last Friday, the temperature display in my car said it was 114F. I suspect it might have only been 109F, but that’s hot enough.

Sadly, I rent died on Apoc. Of course, my morts are only level 4 or thereabouts, so I can only get money by going to the training academy. I should see how much my fighter can kill there in the meantime. I guess I could work my way back up to having decent rent money and EQ, but I seem to time it when no one is on, so it’s boring to regen with no one to talk to.

I have been doing some interesting things. I signed up for 750words.com, and have met the goal of writing 750 words for each of 17 days so far this month. Considering I spent a lot of time not writing in the last 6 years, that’s actually pretty good. I’ve also been doing web writing and blog writing for a client website and my own business. I’m working on getting more clients, and know that’s going to take some time to build up. I’m also working on one of the stories that I started years ago when I was MUDding more, and am hoping to eventually finish the 4 stories that I have started – most of them haven’t seen the light of day because I didn’t have anyone to share them with. My husband isn’t much of a reader, sadly.

I haven’t touched my characters on Wasteland 2 in the last few months. I’m at a point where I’m stuck, so I need to get through the place where I’m stuck so I can finish the game. I’m trying to find my way to one of the other locations, and every time I try, I find more radioactive sites that I need to avoid. I should probably search it to see if I can figure out how to get to the locations where I need to go. Google is my friend 😉 That’s how I do so well with Excel at work *grin*

There’s actually going to be a Comic Con here in town next weekend (August 4th and 5th). It’s the first one here – they’re saying first annual, so we’ll see if it keeps up. I was talking to my hairdresser about it, and he said that he’d laugh if anyone went to it in costume because he was thinking that it was more for businesses to get their stuff out there. Then I saw something on Facebook about a costume contest. Which now has me wondering what I can make for a costume in a bit over a week. Not that I’d want to compete in the contest, but I think it’d be fun to go in costume.

I’ve talked before about listening to HowStuffWorks poodcasts, including Stuff You Missed in History Class, and Stuff They Don’t Want You to Know. I hadn’t been listening to much other than the Missed in History podcast, because I started listening from the beginning. I think I got to the end of November 2017, before I got sidetracked when downloading podcasts for the trip last month.

I had heard an ad for a new podcast sometime in April or May. The new podcast was called Nerdificent. This one just sounded so cool that I stopped with the Missed in History podcast, which I’ll pick back up soon.

This podcasts talks about everything from table top games, to Power Rangers, Twitch to violence in video games. The hosts are people who have been on other nerd podcasts, like Nerdist and Midnight – well that’s the only one I can think of at the moment.

The thing I like about this podcast isn’t that it’s stuff I don’t actually already know. I mean I listened to their Avengers podcast after I watched the movie. Instead, it just makes me giggle at some of the memories the podcast triggers. Like the discussion about Dungeons & Dragons or Power Rangers – which I watched some with my oldest.

That’s what I like about the TechStuff podcast as well, so I’d say this means I’ll continue listening to them.